Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Walkthrough & Strategy Guide

The Maze Gardens can be quite confusing. After all, it's a maze. So if you're intending to follow our walkthrough for this stage to a tee, you should do just that. Don't skip over anything, even details you may deem mundane. That's because it's easy to get confused, turned around and otherwise annoyed. So, for starters, move forward down the hallway in which you begin. You'll come to a courtyard devoid of enemies. There's nothing left to do here but to press forward again. Now that you've entered the hedgerows of the castle maze, you'll start to find yourself under attack by new enemies here. These foes, known as Mandragoras, are tiny creatures that spawn from the earth. They are easy to kill in a mere one or two hits, and their only attack, which is a health-siphon assault, is easy to avoid, too. The danger with them comes in their seemingly-never-ending spawns, which usually results in you having to deal with many more of them at once than you'd like to.

Scroll (1/3)

After your initial confrontation with the Mandragora, you'll want to move forward and take the left fork (out of three possible pathways to explore). This will ultimately lead you, in a westerly direction, to a rectangular-shaped hedgerow, with a pathway working all the way around it. You'll encounter a gate at the northern end of the rectangle, but it's only for show, and can't be opened from this side. At the far left end of the rectangle, more Mandragora will materialize and assault you in great numbers. Sit tight and deal with them as best you can. When things then quiet down, you should be able to grab a scroll from a dead body on the left.

Light Gem (1/1)

Due north from the location of the dead body that contained the scroll, you'll see a decaying stone wall. The stone wall in question should be at the northwestern corner of the aforementioned rectangle (keep in mind that this rectangle is a bit loose, and isn't a perfect rectangular shape). Use Shadow Magic to shoulder-dash through the wall there. A small alcove should be exposed with -- you guessed it -- a dead body within. Search the body for a Light Gem.

Life Gem (1/1)

Return now to the fork where you started things out, where you first encountered the Mandragora. You'll now have two yet-unexplored prongs to deal with. Both are on your right. Take the one in the middle, in between the already-explored and yet-unexplored corridors of the maze. The camera will shift behind Gabriel as you do, so that an area that was once on your right is now directly ahead of you. Move into this next area, where more Mandragoras will attack. To your left, you should see a glowing statue. After fending off the Mandragora, grapple onto the glowing statue with your whip, slice it in half (following the on-screen instructions to do so), and raid the body hidden on the far side of the destroyed statue to locate a Life Gem.

Now, it's time to explore the right side of this area. Keep in mind that when we say "right side," we're referring wholly to the right side of the initial part of the maze from the perspective you have when you first enter. This is important for us to stress, since the never-ending camera angle changes will warp your sense of direction. While you'll be assaulted by droves of Mandragoras here, what you're really looking for is a sort of obelisk obscured by some of the hedgerow. Get on the near side of the obelisk when you find it, and give it a punch to send it careening northward along a rail. You can then climb up the obelisk and use it to launch yourself over a part of the hedgerow, effectively reaching the next section of the maze. In your exploration of the initial part of the maze, you'll also come to a huge gap in the ground. You'll need an animal to cross it, and unfortunately, you don't yet have what it takes to do so.